I know it is going to be a unique shooting day for No Reservations the minute I jump out of the drab green helicopter the Colombian Government provided us with for this scene. Since I am first out, I bolt like my a** is on fire towards the shoulder-high plants at the edge of the clearing we chose as a landing zone. My feet sink into the soft soil as I run, making the few yards I need to travel to reach the safety of the crops seem to take forever.I look back and see our military handlers file out next ... there are three of them, and all are dressed like Navy SEALs, ready with their MP5 machine guns to provide us a blanket of what is known in the military world as "suppressive fire" to protect us in case an emergency extraction is warranted while we are filming the upcoming scene.

Todd and Zach from our crew emerge from the heli next, and as they near my position, they both perform a perfect tuck and roll into the safety of the brush. Watching this, I am immediately amazed by how nimble our camera guys are while carrying around 30 pounds of lenses and gaff tape.

Tony and Tom hop out last. Tom boldly takes what is known as the "human shield" stance to protect our host in case things get hairy on the ground. They make it to our position with no incident, and we are all safe and under cover in the field.

I do a quick head count, and while doing so, notice Todd frantically plucking leaves off a nearby plant and jamming them by the handful into his camera bag. He sees me staring and shrugs, "When in Rome...ya know?" I let Todd get back to his gathering, and start thinking about our next scene.

What I had considered was the logistical difficulty of filming a hot dog scene in the Colombian rain forest. It is just a b***h to get in here in one piece...and it is hot -- hotter than one could imagine. My backpack is full of bottled water for the crew, and I offer one up to Zach - he shakes his head, too busy looking for a spot in all this green to white balance his camera.

What I had not considered was that Zach's intricately modified camera rig looks dubiously like a shoulder-mounted Stinger missile launcher ... this may create problems for us, especially if someone sees us from a distance.

As our helicopter lifts off and heads to the rally point I begin to wonder how the hell we are going to pull this thing off...and if the hot dog will end up being the end of Act 4 or possibly the beginning of Act 5 in the final cut of the show. Hot dog scenes are delicate in that way -- it all depends on the quality of the toppings, and if the bread is fresh baked or not, also if the actual dog is pork or beef.

BOOM

Our transport helicopter explodes mid-air with a shockwave so powerful it blows my annotated copy of the filming schedule for the day out of my hand. The explosion is followed by the arrhythmic popping sound of machine guns on full auto - I can hear the bullets cutting through the vegetation around me.

My first thought is - I hope the guys are filming this.

Our handlers scream for us to "hit the deck", and as I dive to the ground, my ears are still ringing from the blast. Landing face first, I spit out a mouthful of dirt as my head spins, and there is a redundant sound pulsing through my head akin to a phone ringing at full volume inside my skull...is this what shell shock feels like?

I gather myself and try to make a another head count - to my right I see Tony calmly drinking a beer and eating a slice of pizza while chatting up one of the soldiers working with us (where the hell did he get that piece of pie?)

To my left is a collection of spent mortar shells and ammo cases as well as an old style rotary phone, half buried in the moist Colombian soil.

The phone is ringing in cadence with my head.

So I answer it.

"Hello?"

"Buenos Dias, this is your 7AM wake up call."

I hang up the phone, and tuck and roll out of my plush bed at a beautiful and safe hotel room in the walled city of Cartagena -- it is time to go to work.

As my dream fades, I laugh out loud at it. Turns out Colombia is a completely different kind of dream...it is one of the most amazing countries I have ever visited. The Colombian people are awesome - unbelievably kind and accommodating, and the food is out of this world. Cartagena de las Indias is spectacular in its old world glory, and Medellin is as progressive a city as any I have been to in the USA (and much, much, more into their food).

You need to see it to believe it. But right now, I really want some coffee - I need to think about our trip to a remote fishing village off the coast of Cartagena that shoves off in about an hour.

This is going to be a great day. - JA

To paraphrase a well-known chef, author and TV personality, making television is a lot like making sausage. Some seemingly strange and terrible things happen in the process, but the end result is usually very satisfying. So to follow this analogy through, if making TV is like making sausage then, I suppose editing would be like the part where the various bits are stuffed into the intestinal casing. Thankfully, this is all just metaphorical; I've yet to actually use an intestinal casing in any project. Anyway, the point is-- editing a very satisfying job (this show especially so). The amount of creative input you're afforded, the opportunity to shape something from a rough outline & raw footage to a finished product is great, and I'm lucky to have this for a career. But at the end of the day, who the hell knows what an editor really does? I've been working in this field for a few years now, and it's still not a simple question for me to answer ...On the occasion when I meet someone new at a party or other social function, or whenever I'm around extended family and the subject of my involvement with No Reservations comes up, it is typically met with some enthusiasm, if not outright excitement. Even people who have only a passing knowledge of the show will know about "that chef guy who ate the live cobra heart," or "oh yeah, the guy who ate the pig anus." Typically the first question will be, "Wow, do you get to go to all those exotic locations with Tony?"

Well . . .no.

I get to watch all the crazy stuff he does and help whittle it all down from fifty hours to forty-five minutes. This explanation usually elicits something in the neighborhood of: "Hmmm. . ." or "Oh. . ." or occasionally I get a "Really. . ." Now, it's true, I don't get to experience the exciting exploits of the ABNR crew… the smorgasboard of exotic foods ...the sublime beauty of a sunset on Waimea ... a taste of the local hooch ... but that's okay, because there's something else I don't get to do -- worry.

I work in a comfortable, safe, air-conditioned production space in downtown Manhattan. The biggest peril I face on any given day is whether I will make it to the office before the complimentary bagels and fruit are gone. I can work comfortable in the knowledge that I will never have to swim in river fluke infested waters. I will never have to drink fermented beverages of dubious origins. I'll never come in contact with DefCon 1 level gastrointestinal parasites; I'll never be expected to eat anything I might want to have as a pet. Nor will I be obliged to load up on mystery meat, just-removed genitals, dirt, feces, etc. There's no worry of vomiting on camera while squid fishing in rough seas. No worry of hitting that one village where the Avian Swine Ebola outbreak just started. No chance that I'll fall from a helicopter that's flying twenty feet above a molten lava field. My job is light on the adventure and sex appeal, but heavy on the free coffee. I got no complaints.

Actually, that's not entirely true. Like all editors, I've got a shitload of complaints. If you've ever spent any prolonged amount of time with an editor than you know that complaining is as close as most will get to a contact sport. It is woven into the spirals of an editors DNA.

"The edit room's too hot." "The edit room's too cold." "This editing system is too old." "This editing system is too new." "I've got how many weeks to cut this episode?" "The network wants to take out what?! That's the best part of the show!" "What do you mean when you say, 'more midgets'?" And on, and on, and on. In the process of editing it's often necessary to have to play and replay a single section of an edit multiple times to make sure that the picture, or sound mix, or music cue is working just as you want it to. I can't count the number of times that I've been working next door to someone who's cutting a show and they have their playback speakers set at "Who Concert" decibel levels. And it's inevitably a truly horrendous show, something along the lines of a Celine Dion world tour video, a show about monster trucks, or a Girls Gone Wild Director's Cut DVD. And did I mention the lack of exposure to sunlight?

Even if you're lucky enough to work in an edit room with a window, it's typically covered so as to avoid any glare on the monitor. To help illustrate just how little natural light editors see on a daily basis I've compiled a short list of people who average more hours of exposure to sunlight per day than editors.

People Who Average More Daily Exposure to Sunlight Than Editors:

1. Prisoners in solitary confinement

2. People living above the Arctic Circle from September through December

3. Anthracite miners

4. Children who have fallen down wells

5. Subway construction workers

6. Scientists studying bush babies

7. Missile silo technicians

8. Russian Naval submarine crews

9. Naked mole rats

10. Vampires

This is merely a small sampling, but you get the idea.

Despite the lack of natural light, despite the sedentary nature of the job, despite the fact that you can only vicariously enjoy all of the amazing places that Tony visits, it's still a great gig. Editing is, in many ways, like writing. You have the chance to craft the episode in the edit room and nothing is more satisfying than taking the scene that was never meant to be or the one that didn't quite turn out the way everyone thought it was going to and turning it into what our host likes to refer to as "video gold."

It's also a collaborative art, you, the producer, the executive producers and of course, Tony help to turn a handful of separate scenes into a journey that hopefully informs as well as entertains.

I recently finished work on the Hawaii episode, which will be airing on March 3rd (10 p.m. e/p). It came out great. Our camera crews shot some truly remarkable stuff and Tony had a great time. Anyone reading this will undoubtedly be pulling up the Hawaiian Airlines website as soon as the show ends. So, enjoy!

And now if you'll excuse me, I have to get to the kitchen and snag that last sesame bagel before returning to the edit bunker. More quality television awaits!

We set out to explore Hawaii's central myths - Tiki bars, luaus, Spam, the Vulcan Goddess, and, of course, big wave riding. And when I say "big wave" I mean the 30 foot vertical wall that boys from Palm Beach to Palm Springs gaze up at from their bunk beds before going to sleep at night. After all, this is the Bourdain Show, the man's eaten a wart hog's ass - it has to be spectacular.
Back in NY I had pitched the idea of pairing Tony up with legendary Darrick "Double D" Doerner, Laird (the God of surf) Hamilton's right hand tow-in man. My executive producer was initially excited but as we got closer to the shoot, hidden expenses started to circle the sequence like sharks drawn to a bleeding rookie. I think the boss' last words to me were "fine, do it, but bring me back Riding Giants." No problem.

Surfer's are not production types. They don't synch their iBooks to their Blackberries - they sleep in VW's and rub their equipment in something called Sex Wax. Needless to say, nailing down Darrick and his cohorts is slippery business. We would call, wait, get cryptic messages about the sea. We were getting the impression that the size of the surf might not be what we were hoping for, so, on the day Zach (trusty camera man) and I decide to pre-scout the North Shore and let Tony catch some extra Z's. Keeping Tony happy is every producer's PFD (personal flotation device).

On the way to the infamous Haleiwa Harbor - home to crankster gangsters (meth dealers) and other assorted ornery locals - I finally get the elusive Double D on the phone. His few words to me are "meet me in the parking lot, I'll be in a hood." This is gonna be neato. When we get there a lone figure is set against the surf, back to us, staring not at tsunamis, but something more akin to a punch bowl - something you'd loose your toddler in were he equipped with the appropriate floaties. Darrick actually turns out to be a very cool guy, the consummate soul surfer who doesn't so much answer questions as respond with greater philosophical queries, like "today, nobody owns the ocean, but who will the ocean own today?" Deep and foreboding.

We quickly hatch a plan to send Zach out on the jet ski so that we can determine if he's even capable of holding a shot while bouncing around on the back of one of these things. So while Zach and Double D zip around on the giant puddle, I pace the shore trying to decide whether or not to postpone the shoot. On the one hand, there are no waves and my boss' parting words are still ringing in my ears. On the other hand, I've already spent one day's steep set of fees just to get Double D and crew out in the slop with their neon crotch rockets. I'm really in the production trenches now boy.

Finally, the prospect of slogging Tony through traffic to present him with the lagoon of love I'm looking at, scares me more than my mounting budget and I decide to call base camp and tell them to reschedule for Monday. Meanwhile, Double D and Zach come puttering back - Zach looks like he just saw the Titanic sink, shaking his head slowly, a mix of fear and apology. You see, way back in the early planning days of this debacle Zach had insisted that we didn't need a special surf videographer, that having braved so many inhospitable climates with Tony before, he was the man for the job. Shoulders slumped, wet, a shadow of his former self, he was now resolute about our need for a specialist. I had to agree, if he couldn't hack it in the kiddy pool how would he do in the real surf I was banking on for Monday. Double D informed us that this meant we had to contact the renowned Don King - ocean shooter non pareil. I pictured the fat boxing promoter in a skintight wetsuit with his shock of white hair whipping around in the spray. Apparently, it wasn't the same guy - but he was going to charge the equivalent of a championship purse ... Cha- ching. This segment's gonna rock.

When Zach and I get back to Honolulu, dejected and tired, we find out that Tony has found a local and eccentric take on the hotdog (apparently an obsessive quest for him), and not only that, he's directed his own scene revolving around this meat tube that gets mechanically shot into a closed cylindrical bun. Yes, apparently he couldn't stand for the lag in productivity our excursion had caused and roused his beloved cameraman "Toddles" out of bed to shoot his own segment and in effect pirate my show (if the captain of a ship can be mutinous)... I wont spoil what happened Monday because you can see for yourself when the episode airs. I will, however tell you that Double D sent us off with a warm smile and the ancient surf dictum "the sea is in charge..." I could adapt that in a number of ways to apply to my line of work but I think in this case it'll have to be "how much does the sea charge?"

Sleep, the night before leaving for a shoot, is a lost battle. Every possible disaster scenario goes around and around in my head over and over again. Since this was my first official Associate Producer gig, I needed everything to go perfectly. I had to prove to Tony, Chris and rest of the crew I was a valuable asset. Releases, scenes, chefs, costs then the next thing I know, the alarm goes off and the day has come: shoot day 1.
Sleep during the week varies drastically. The first night is the hardest. The whole shoot is still ahead and I'm in a new space far away from home albeit a luxurious and hip hotel. And already on day 2, I can tell the Vancouver show is going to be different and special. The city and its inhabitants are bursting with character. Even raining couldn't get us down. Tojo, EA Sports, Uwe Boll, and Whistler/Blackcomb â€" one great shoot after another! And getting to explore a fun new place with Tony is pretty much the best job. I sleep every night looking forward to another day of exploring this amazing city.

Sleep, the final day of the shoot, is the best sleep ever. After celebrating with Tony, the crew, three of Vancouver's finest chefs, and many new friends we picked up along the way, I hit that pillow with great relief, satisfaction and a big, big (heavily intoxicated) smile on my face.

DAY ONE

First time producer on Bourdain. looking forward to a cakewalk - what could go wrong? (1) Tony's car to the airport an hour late. (2) he's pissed. that surly intimidating TV persona? Not so much for TV. (3) Economy Plus should be renamed Business Minus. We're sitting four across like we're strapped on a roller coaster. The symbolism doesn't escape me. (4) I switch seats with Todd who claims he has a phobia of middle seats. Note to self: watch out for The Todd. (5) We arrive in the UK and still haven't confirmed our key scene, Marco Pierre White. (6) We're testing new cameras on this shoot and find some big glitches: the big one is the focus ring. It's way off. (9) Todd and Zach really annoyed. Not exactly a smooth start.DAY TWO

(10) We need B-roll that's not too obvious and perfect. Need something dark. But everything looks like Harry Potter hooked up with a rainbow. (11) In case we end the show in Scotland, I need Tony to do an episode wrap to camera. So my first question, ever, to Tony has to be 'what did you learn?' from a trip he hasn't had yet. Nice. (12) Still no word from Marco Pierre White. (13) I have to film Tony walking. He's walking twice his normal speed and Zach and I are literally running after him. (14) Tony hates walking shots. (15) I gather this from when he says 'I hate walking shots.' (16-26) We have to film about ten more walking shots.

DAY THREE - IAN RANKIN

(27) Tony's with his friend, Ian Rankin. We need to set up the bar, so we have them order a pint while they wait. (28) They need some beers for the scene. Let's order pints. (29) lunch break, so they get a pint. (30) chip shop not ready. Let's all get a pint. (31) B-roll break. get a pint. (32) need to wait for restaurant. pints. (33) wait for light. Pints. (34) Meal scene. They need beverages. Wine. (35) Finally. Time to film the key conversation. So why the f*%k are they slurring their words??

DAY FOUR - TRAIN SCENE

(35) Taking the train down to London. Zach realizes he left his passport in the hotel safe. We're here for a few more days. They'll just send it to us in London. No problem (36) great news from Marco. He's letting us film us hunt... but there's a catch. only one person/camera can go.

DAY FIVE - MEAT MARKET

(37) 3:30 am wake up call. (38) 4 a.m. at Smithfield market. I'm filming a butcher fondle a bucket of testicles. Which he may or may not be enjoying. Dreams really do come true. (39) 6 a.m. filming the butchers at the cock tavern and they're covered with blood. Wait a second. That's actually great. (40) they won't let us into the kitchen to film. They say come back at 4. (41) I come back at 4. Still no luck. Screw it. (42) I'm filming B-roll of a telephone booth but there's a guy in there who's convinced I am recording his conversation which we can assume at this point is not so much legal. A police officer comes up. Time for the 'ol standard tourist filming line. Because every tourist needs really good b-roll of a phone booth. (43) Send in The Zach for the hunting scene with Marco and Tony. Pray that they shoot a deer, have a great conversation and that everyone stays safe, in that order. (44) They come back, deer in tow. Tony shot his first deer and I find myself saying the phrase, "Todd, let's get some carcass porn" (45) Filming dinner scene. It's so dark we need 9 fat candles around the table. Now it looks like some sort of creepy Hannakuh.

DAY SIX - FERGUS AND PHIL

(46) Filming in St. John Bread & Wine and it couldn't be louder. (47) Next up, filming in Jerry's Bar and it couldn't be darker. (48) Finally, filming in Soho with Phil Dirtbox and it couldn't be more chaotic. But somehow, strangely, it's all working out and the footage couldn't be better.

DAY SEVEN - MORCHEEBA

(49) Last scene of the shoot. With the band, Morcheeba. Some of the nicest guys I've had the pleasure to work with. Tony is having a blast and it shows. We end up filming two fantastic scenes involving two songs... but I have absolutely no idea how we can use it all in the show. (50) Zach's passport doesn't arrive and he has to stay in London an extra day. (51) Why couldn't Jay Z have written 51 Problems? Let's just assume there were a bunch more and skip to... (99) We've just wrapped the UK show. My first, but I'm only halfway through. It's right on to Athens for seven more days, and another show. One down. One to go. I'm sure I'll have 99 more problems, but this Brit show, thank god, ain't one.